


Cartographists

by vicepoint



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/F, Gay Panic, Internalized Homophobia, Mental Health Issues, Recreational Drug Use, Short, this is the first time i've written them sort of young so they're. kinda confused and stupid, uh... sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-04-29 10:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14470500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicepoint/pseuds/vicepoint
Summary: Rachel's hazel eyes are blown wide, brighter than any of the stars above them, irises exploding with light years of nebulae.Chloe feels small. She has to look away.——two friends stargaze.





	Cartographists

“What do you see?”

Rachel's on her back, face turned to the sky, awash in moonlight and the glow from Chloe's blunt.

All the snacks they brought out here are finished already, leaving only the bottle of rosé in Rachel’s backpack to drink, but neither of them feels the need to make a move for it. They’re buzzed enough as it is, for now.

Chloe stretches her arms, yawning. 

"Stars," she responds flatly.

It's past midnight, and they’re parked just down from the lighthouse's hiking trail, completely alone save for the constellations lighting up the sky. There isn't too much else to see.

Rachel’s eyebrows crease at Chloe’s answer, obviously unsatisfied.

“You know what I mean. Look,” she says, then throws her arms out widely, trying to encapsulate the entire sky in the space spanning between her hands.

Chloe quickly reaches for the joint Rachel’s waving dangerously towards the moon. She jolts to the side in protest, laughing breathlessly as Chloe’s hand chases after her.

Chloe finally snatches it back, smugly placing it between her lips for safekeeping.

“Thief,” Rachel says.

“It’s mine,” Chloe objects, breathing smoke in Rachel’s face just to be obnoxious. Rachel narrows her eyes, but remains still as it washes over her.

“...Bitch,” she whispers, and Chloe barks out a laugh.

They settle back into the variety of blankets lining the truck bed, falling into silence again.

“It’s a good strain,” Rachel continues, brushing her clothes. “Makes me feel all… smooth.”

Chloe watches as Rachel runs her hands up and down her body — thumbing the cotton of her t-shirt, the denim of her jean shorts — fabric clinging tight to her skin. She turns away after a few seconds, inhaling smoke sharply.

She holds it in her lungs as long as she can, staring up at the sky, head feeling light.

“So?” Rachel asks, nudging Chloe. “Tell me. What do you see?”

Rachel eyes her expectantly, and Chloe coughs when she exhales, cringing a little at herself. She looks up, stars blurring together, a mass of distant lights.

“The… Big Dipper,” she answers hesitantly. “Ursa… Major, right? She’s a bear, or something. There’s, like, a baby one too. Somewhere nearby.” Chloe gestures loosely with her hand. "Fuck knows."

“Yeah,” Rachel responds. She’s smiling, warm, pleased. Chloe instantly feels undeserving of it.

“God, don’t pretend to be impressed,” she says with a shaky laugh, averting her eyes. “Any fifth grader could’ve pointed that out.”

“I’m not,” Rachel says, shoving Chloe lightly. “I just like hearing you talk.”

Chloe doesn’t know what to say to that.

She settles on, “oh”.

Maybe nothing would’ve been better.

Rachel looks back to the sky again, then asks, “See the blue one, sparkling? Little ways down from Ursa Major, on the left,” she adds, only continuing when Chloe nods. “That’s Vega. The little triangle it’s in’s called, like, the Summer Triangle or some shit. It’s directly overhead in summer. Super bright, too. That's why we can see it so good.”

Chloe finds, somewhere during Rachel’s sentence, that she’s watching her instead of the constellations.

“And when you follow up, that little cluster there, snaking all the way around to the bears…” Rachel mumbles as she points the way, drawing an S-shape in the air. “You find Draco.”

She looks at Chloe suddenly, and Chloe nearly startles, caught staring.

“It’s Latin for dragon,” Rachel says, then smiles tepidly. “I love that."

"Yeah?" Chloe asks, lacking another decent response.

"Yeah. I want a dragon _tattoo_ someday. Wouldn’t that be so dope?” She leans forward and bends her leg up, then smooths her fingers down her calf. “Right here. That would be pretty hot.”

Chloe bites her lip as her eyes trail down Rachel’s legs. She’s not sure if it’s the weed making her anxious, or something else.

“What do you think?” Rachel presses.

“Um. Isn’t that a movie or something?” Chloe responds, stupidly. She curses herself out as soon as the words leave her mouth. Way to sound fucking dumb.

“Huh?” Rachel asks, grinning.

“Uh… _Girl with the Dragon Tattoo_?” Chloe scratches her head. “Maybe it’s a book. I dunno, never mind.”

“Oh, I think so, yeah.” Rachel’s smile dims a few watts. “I might need to prepare for those references when people ask about it, huh?”

“You’ll be the dopest girl with a dragon tattoo,” Chloe says. “So don't stress.”

Rachel laughs.

“Thanks,” she says, lying down against the blankets again, closer to Chloe this time. The heat from her body radiates, the smell of her shampoo drifts; something herbal Chloe can't place, but still breathes in deep. She passes the joint back over after a few quiet seconds, fingers brushing.

Chloe senses Rachel observing her while she takes a drag, gaze intense, but Chloe can't look back.

The stars stretch forever above them, dizzying, and Chloe feels like she’s falling.

“It wasn’t like this, back in Long Beach,” Rachel says. Her voice is quiet, like she’s admitting something she shouldn’t.

“...what wasn’t?” Chloe glances at her. She's blinking slowly, catlike, hair fanned out around her.

“Everything,” she responds, exhaling smoke. It drifts up, up above them, towards Draco and Ursa and Vega. Rachel waves her hand through it.

“You mean the sky?” Chloe asks, turning to face her.

Rachel’s pause is so long that Chloe almost forgets what she asked.

“Everything is so much… clearer,” Rachel says. She smiles weakly, and Chloe feels lost, like there must be a joke she’s not in on. “It’s staggering. And you’ve lived here this _whole_ time. Meanwhile, I’m back in Cali, not even knowing what’s waiting for me.”

“Wh—What?”

Rachel presses her lips together.

“Light pollution,” she decides, after a moment. “Back home is pretty trash for this stuff. So much gross smog from the city, too many streetlights…” She shrugs. “You know.”

“Oh,” says Chloe. “Right.”

Rachel meets Chloe’s eyes, and says softly, “but it’s beautiful here.”

Chloe feels heat rising to her cheeks.

Rachel does shit like that, sometimes. Looks straight at Chloe and says things that make her feel like Rachel’s announced that they have no parachutes mid skydive.

It must be written across her face, because Rachel rolls onto her back again, grinning wildly.

_Jesus, they’re both so fucking high._

“It’s one of my favorite things about this place,” Rachel explains, her limbs stretching languid in the air above. Her hazel eyes are blown wide, brighter than any of the stars above them, irises exploding with light years of nebulae.

Chloe feels small. She has to look away.

“You have favorite things about here?” she asks, preparing to follow up with 'not just things you tolerate?' and score a laugh from Rachel, something light and airy to clear a moment which feels too heavy with fog and electricity.

But her voice comes out so soft and low that it only mirrors Rachel’s seriousness; plunges them further into quiet darkness.

“Of course,” Rachel answers, turning to Chloe, head nestling into the jacket she’s using as a pillow. A long lock of hair falls into her eyes, and she tucks it behind her ear, gaze still fixed on Chloe. Her eyes trail across her face, down her neck, settling somewhere near her sternum.

Tentatively, she reaches out; fingers meeting bare skin, resting there, innocent and unaware that Chloe’s been set alight. Chloe hopes Rachel can’t feel her heartbeat hammering in her chest.

The pads of Rachel’s fingers trace upwards, sketching invisible maps to places Chloe’s never been, and Chloe swallows when she crosses her throat. Rachel smiles a shy crescent as Chloe burns.

She lets her hand fall gently, and it lies on the blanket between them; half-bridging the gap, but still feeling miles away.

Chloe shifts, and Rachel’s eyes follow her inquisitively.

“And... you’re still going to leave here?” Chloe asks slowly, licking her lips, still feeling the blaze from Rachel’s touch.

She knows she doesn’t really need to ask. She knows that out of all the things Rachel is confident about, this dream of hers is the most certain. But Rachel’s thoughts are like storm clouds brewing in her mind, and having her say them aloud makes Chloe feel more tethered. Like maybe Chloe can be a part of the cosmic mess that Rachel makes her head out to be.

“Of course,” Rachel repeats. Her hand inches closer, and she smiles. “With you.”

Chloe doesn’t know if it’s a question, a suggestion, an explanation, a command.

All she knows is that there’s nothing else in the world she would rather do than run away with her. Except, maybe, stay here with her.

“Will you?” Rachel asks, hand quivering, lips parted. It's so vulnerable and unlike Rachel that Chloe just stares back for a second.

“Yeah,” Chloe says, moving closer. “Yeah, obviously."

Nobody else looks at Chloe like that. Nobody else maps out their future, placing Chloe right in the center of it. Nobody else is as lucky as she is right now, face inches from Rachel Amber's, sharing air and smoke and promises.

The nighttime breeze is cool against her bare shoulders, and when her hand touches Rachel’s, it heats her up, outside-in. Rachel’s eyelashes flutter back at her, eyes crinkling as she smiles, and Chloe—

feels sick.

What if it's just a dream, and nothing more? Just like Chloe's other dreams. Something her starving heart and lonely brain’s conjured up, something she’ll wake up from tomorrow, drowning in sweat and guilt.

Rachel edges closer, and Chloe’s thoughts drift further.

After all, how did she end up here? How did Rachel choose Chloe, out of all of her friends, to be the one she smokes up and talks crazy with? What possessed the perfect-grades, perfect-looks, perfect-heart _perfect_ girl to shack up with Chloe, some broken shell of an acquaintance who offers nothing but issues in return?

Chloe winces, head turning down and away from Rachel's searching eyes.

Rachel won’t even know. She won’t even know the way Chloe feels when Rachel looks at her, the fact she’s all Chloe can think of when she falls asleep at night, and her first thought when waking up in the morning. She won’t know that Chloe doesn’t think about hooking up with guys at parties, like Rachel does, even though she _should —_ and she won’t know that Chloe’s struggling, keeping it all to herself. That she’s messed up, dirty, wrong. That she thinks like _that_ about her best friend.

It’ll turn into a nightmare, soon enough. Just like the ones she had after Dad was killed, the ones after Max left her behind. Rachel will leave her, too, once she realizes what she’s really like, what she really thinks. That’s what Chloe does. She ruins things, scares them away, makes them rot.

So when Rachel discards the joint and finally crosses the distance, presses her lips against Chloe’s, soft and hard and perfect all at once — Chloe’s eyes squeeze shut.

Rachel remains still, pressed against her, warm and real and solid and Chloe _has_ to be dreaming. Chloe’s lips move against her own will, because that’s how dreams and nightmares work, and then she’s sleepwalking, wrapping her arms around Rachel’s shoulders and kissing her back. Tongues meet, and Rachel sends white-hot lightning coursing through Chloe’s body, down her spine, deep in her stomach, confirming all her fears, and she wants to cry, God, she’s going to cry—

It feels so good, and she's so scared. Scared it'll mean nothing. Scared it'll turn to dust in her hands.

Her body’s shaking silently, and this isn’t how kisses should be, but Chloe fucks everything up, anyway, so should she really be surprised?

Rachel pulls back first, but not far. She shifts, hiding her face in Chloe’s shoulder, lips brushing against her neck. Chloe whines immediately, and hates herself for it. Her heart is thumping, stomach flipping — she tries to calm her nerves, gripping Rachel too tightly, breathing too heavily.

Rachel says nothing, and it makes everything worse. She traces shapes along Chloe’s arms, eliciting shivers, but keeping quiet. Then she buries her head further into Chloe, pulling the blanket she's tangled in with her.

Chloe stares out into the forest surrounding them, waiting for Rachel to break the silence, to bring her back to reality.

To tell Chloe, _I’m sorry, that was a mistake._ To say, _shit, you really_ are _gay for me, huh_? To giggle, in that Rachel way, _wasn’t that fun?_ To push her away and never talk to her again.

Chloe closes her eyes.

(To pull her closer, stroke her cheeks, say _anything,_ anything that makes what she just did real.)

Rachel always makes the first move. But this time, she doesn’t.

The moment passes.

It takes an eternity for Chloe to gather to courage to ask, “what was that?”

But she’s not sure Rachel hears. She’s not sure Rachel is even awake anymore. She’s just a warm, still bundle in her arms, chest rising and falling against her.

Chloe breathes in the smell of tea tree, and waits. For answers, for sunrise, for nothing.

For shooting stars.

 

Things will make sense when morning comes.

**Author's Note:**

>  _[So let's say nothing some more  
>  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InvHEQ5rE_s)_ _[because this is something more than me / and let the words burn their way across the floor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InvHEQ5rE_s) _
> 
> _[and I can't: I can't](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InvHEQ5rE_s) _  
>  _[I can't hold smoke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InvHEQ5rE_s) _
> 
>  
> 
> ♡
> 
> i've been in a weird mood recently, floating between good and bad places. this was just something that i wanted to get out of my system. and now it's 5am!
> 
> my interpretation of amberprice was always crafted w/ influence from pre-bts depictions of chloe and rachel, so a short thank you to the people who agonized with me for hours at a time over their pairing years before d9 took a shot at it too. you know who you are


End file.
